Dotted Blue-eyed Grass Has A New Name

Once upon a time, I knew this plant as Texas Dotted Blue-eyed Grass. Since that time, Sysirinchium pruinosum has undergone reclassification to Sisyrinchium langloisii, the Roadside Blue-eyed Grass. This tiny Iris family (Iridaceae) member is seen all over Texas wherever sandy or clay loam grasslands occur. You only get to see these tiny-flowered beauties in April and May when it is cool enough for irises to bloom.

The individual pictured above is from West Texas in 2017. The tips of its tepals show a little wear, but you can see the basic pattern of the flower. Tepal is a botannical term to describe those flowers that produce petals that cannot be distinguished from sepals which usually encase the flowerbud. Tepals serve as sepal and petal in these kinds of flowers.

The grass-like leaves are a miniature version of what you would see on their Iris cousins that folks put in their gardens. These guys are perennial and reproduce from their rhizomatous roots (the short way of saying that they make thick roots that grow underneath and parallel to the ground which produce the plant you see.).

The second image shows a colony that grew in a wet year down in Fort Worth. It shows how the undamaged, or unstressed tepals should look. They are evenly rounded when open and not notched or bent at the tips. You can also see the centrally located column of pistils and stamens.

The third image shows a more robust specimen found in a Fort Worth park. I suspect that tepal malformation here is due to lack of water.